


addiction and an increased heart rate

by mundanememory



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Breaking Up & Making Up, Emetophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Recreational Drug Use, background elias/brock but for only like two sentences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-08-23 07:16:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20238880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mundanememory/pseuds/mundanememory
Summary: Rasmus got Casey hooked. He couldn't stop himself from coming back around. He loved the citrus drip of nicotine down his throat and the buzz that it caused. He loved the squirm of Rasmus underneath him on the couch and the breathy noises he'd make. He loved every dimpled imperfection of his skin and the flowery citrus of his breath.Casey gets everything he wants, loses it all, then has to piece all the jumbled moments of ecstasy back together to get any of it back.





	addiction and an increased heart rate

**Author's Note:**

> this fic comes from two places - the first is the apartment tour frolunda did with rasmus recently, which you can find on youtube and which casey is in. at one point when the crew goes into casey's room, you can see casey stash something out of sight, which is almost certainly a snus tin. snus are really big in swedish hockey (if you dont know, theyre a smokeless tobacco product sort of like dip but in pouches) and i was sort of enamored with the concept of rasmus bringing it to casey and getting casey hooked as well. the second is the heavily overused concept of "love as a drug" in music; i wanted to see where i could take that idea, whether i could take it in any different or new direction, and just how it related to my own experiences. it resulted in this mixed-up, fruit-flavored collection of vignettes! i hope you enjoy!
> 
> title comes from a comment on the /r/snus subreddit, partly as a shoutout bc the sub was a big help in doing research about snus and partly because the comment itself ("The cancer risks are so so low the only real danger is the addiction and an increased heart rate") was sort of absurdly funny to me in the offhanded way they reference the danger of addiction. also i feel like addiction and increased heart rate are both relevant to snus and to love. in the iconic words of generational poet ke$ha, "your love, your love, your love is my drug".
> 
> a few squicks / content warnings: this fic deals with human/hockey player typical drug use. mostly snus, but a few references to marijuana as well. there are also 2 scenes that contain vomiting. in terms of homophobia, the majority of the homophobia in this fic is internalized, but the reader can infer that there is in-universe homophobia as well from the narration. in one scene, the term "cocksucker" is used in the internal monologue, though never in dialog and never used directed at a character. feel free to ask for any clarifications / further explanation of any content warnings! (also lmk if i should add anything here; i've never written anything with drug use outside of alcohol before)

_scrape some rind off_

_with my fingernail_

_so that a citrus scent_

_will linger there all day._

_-Roisin Kelly, “Oranges”_

**spring 2020**

Casey and Rasmus used to hook up. They used to do a lot of things. Not anymore, though. Their clothes stay firmly on during _When Harry Met Sally_. Casey isn’t sure what happened, and he isn’t sure how to feel about it.

Rasmus kept him warm all winter. After a year of _almost_ when they were rookies and a summer of longing, they fell together in the autumn. It was a season of firsts and newness; they were untouchable. They went through condoms by the box and snus by the tin.

Casey blinked and Rasmus ghosted. Casey sits cross-legged on their IKEA couch and counts his mistakes, trying to figure out where he messed up, why Rasmus’ hand is in the bowl of popcorn between them and not on Casey’s thigh or in his hair. 

He flips his tin of snus out of his pocket, the perfect cylinder fitting snugly into his palm, and slips one under his lip. Rasmus got him started on nicotine and Casey got hooked way too easily. He kept coming back to it, to the drip down his throat, to the kiss under his ear, to the murmured Swedish obscenities Rasmus would say when Casey touched him.

Tonight Rasmus says, “Pass me one,” holding out his palm without looking. Casey places a pouch there, and Rasmus slips it under his lip. He crinkles his nose. “Mint? Yuck.”

He leaves it in anyway. Casey watches as he sticks his tongue out just enough to wet his bottom lip. Casey squeezes his eyes shut and curls his feet underneath himself, scratching them on the rough fabric of the couch. It doesn’t hurt as much as the yearning does, the pull to the boy holding himself at arm’s length.

**winter 2020**

“Would you ever, like, tell people?” Rasmus’ hair is flipped over his head; his part is a jagged line, not its usual perfect division down the middle.

“About what?” Casey reaches over to his nightstand to grab a bottle of water. He unscrews the cap and immediately drops it, losing it in the thick fabric of his comforter.

“About, like…” Rasmus waves his hand in the air between them, between the sections of bare skin not covered by the comforter. “Being. Like, gay. Or whatever.”

Casey crinkles his nose and almost spills his water. “I’m not—” he says, purely on instinct, simply because it’s what he always says when sexuality and his lack of girlfriends comes up. Rasmus raises his eyebrows. They’re both naked lying in Casey’s bed.

“It’s whatever,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s nobody’s business, anyway.”

He feels for a second like it might’ve been the wrong answer. Rasmus pulls his eyebrows together ever so slightly and Casey winces, but then he’s shrugging and rolling over with a soft “Okay” and Casey figures he did alright.

Casey flips the light off and falls asleep with Rasmus’ cold feet on his legs.

There’s no morning sex waiting for Casey when he wakes up, but he doesn’t think much of it. They’ve hit a point where Casey doesn’t think much of anything at all. Rasmus is always there under his thumb, there to make out with Casey in the kitchen or get high with him and watch a rom-com. Maybe they’ll trade handjobs in the shower after the skate today, Casey thinks as he scrambles four eggs in the perfectly round surface of the pan.

**spring 2020**

Rasmus tastes like citrus, fruity and earthy on Casey’s tongue.

Tast_ed_.

Whatever.

Casey slips the snus in his lip and relaxes back into his chair, letting the sting of mint flood his mouth. The flavor is too sharp, and his mouth feels cold, the smell percolating into his nose too, but he likes it anyway. The mint washes away the memory of citrus.

_Bergamot_, Rasmus had whispered in his ear once. Casey breathed him in, sucked him down like an ice cold drink in the middle of summer. Sometimes it was like the only room in the apartment was the living room, the TV on mute and their clothes discarded on the arms of the couch.

Casey’s half-hard remembering it but he tenses the muscles in his calves until it goes away. He swallows the mint until it’s all he can taste on his tongue, until the ever-lingering fruit from Rasmus’ lips finally fades away. He thinks he needs something a little stronger. He thinks he needs a little more nicotine, a buzz big enough to finally drown out the whisper of _bergamot_ in his ear that plays on repeat.

The next day he drives all the way to Toronto like an idiot and buys the strongest shit they have, all in mint, as many tins as he can carry. Back in Buffalo, as he trudges through ankle-deep slush back into their apartment, he cracks a tin open and puts one in, waiting for the nicotine to hit.

When it hits, it hits _hard_. Casey can feel his heartbeat in the tips of his fingers, in the thrum of his eardrums. He sucks in air to try to slow it, pressing on his chest with fingertips that bounce the rhythm right back inside, but his throat feels stuck shut.

Panicking, he runs to the bathroom and turns the shower on, hoping to drown out the _thump thump thump_ under the water. 

He paces as the water heats up, his throat spasming. He braces his forearms on the counter and gulps down air. Then he hiccups twice and loses his lunch, vomiting into the toilet until his throat burns. He hangs onto the bowl like he’s a college freshman getting fucked up on Four Loko all over again, like he can’t handle his liquor. In some sick way, he kind of likes it, puking until he can’t anymore. He needs to get the poison out.

He ends up lying on his side on the bathroom floor, the tile sapping the heat from his body.

“Case?” It’s Rasmus’ voice, floating up the stairwell. Casey can’t get his vocal cords to vibrate, so he lies still on the floor, wondering if he’ll ever be able to get Rasmus all the way out of his system. Wondering if he wants to.

Louder this time: “Case?!” Rasmus’ voice wavers, a concerned raise at the end of it. Casey still doesn’t reply. Footfalls rattle on the stairs. “What the fuck did you—”

A shadow fills the bathroom. Casey peers up from under his eyelids. Rasmus is leaning into the room, braced in the doorway, his bangs stuck sideways to his forehead.

“Not dead yet,” Casey croaks. 

Rasmus kneels beside Casey, his lips pulled down. He hovers his hand over Casey’s face and hesitates a moment. Casey wheezes in a tiny breath. The air doesn’t taste like mint. It doesn’t taste like anything. Rasmus brings his hand to Casey’s forehead and pushes his sweaty hair up off his skin.

“You’re not allowed to die.” Rasmus pulls his sleeve down over the heel of his hand. “They’d all think I did it.” He wipes the corner of Casey’s mouth, rubbing the vomit off.

Casey breathes out a laugh. Rasmus is bent over him like they’re on the couch again, like _My Big Fat Greek Wedding_ is on again and Casey’s explaining the words Rasmus doesn’t know until they end up making out and rolling right off the edge onto the floor.

Things are different, now. Rasmus doesn’t pick him up and carry him to bed. Rasmus doesn’t cook him dinner and, once he wakes up with an appetite again, Casey doesn’t cook him breakfast. Casey’s still floating through his memories, sorting them and trying to find where the breaking point was.

**winter 2020**

Jeff tosses him the colorful roll of tape without a second look. It lands in Casey’s lap, a perfect unassuming circle. Their jerseys are a rainbow of numbers and names tonight. They’ll wear the jerseys for warm-up and then they’ll be auctioned off to support You Can Play.

Casey feels like snorting out a laugh. He tapes his blade and tries not to betray any emotion on his face. There’s something stuck in his throat like he’s about to cry, and he swallows hard to get rid of the feeling. It’s so stupid. He’s not even gay. No hockey players are gay.

Hockey players aren’t gay. Hockey players don’t kiss other hockey players. Hockey players call each other _cocksuckers _and go home to their wives and kids and dogs at the end of the night. Hockey players don’t fall in love with their roommates with impossibly blonde hair and skin puckered with tiny acne scars.

Casey rips his tape and presses the free end into the blade harder than necessary. He and Rasmus haven’t slept together in two weeks and three days. For the past two weeks and one day, Casey has been telling himself that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter anyway, because there are hundreds of girls in his DMs trying to sleep with him and Casey likes girls, just like he always has. He had his first kiss with a girl, he lost his virginity to a girl, and it was good. He likes girls lips and their legs, the softness and safety in their form and movement.

He rubs the rainbow tape down with wax, over and over. His hands are red. He tapes his wrists.

“Fighting tonight, Case?”

Casey blinks and looks up. Jeff’s nodding at his taped wrists.

“Oh. I dunno, maybe.” He shrugs. “I fuckin’ hate the Leafs.”

Jeff laughs once, loudly. He slaps Casey’s shoulder. “‘Atta boy!”

Casey notices that Rasmus has his entire stick taped, a perfect candy cane stripe. Casey passes the tape off to Jack on his other side. Casey’s tape job is pitiful, really, just a few stripes around the toe. It’s only for warm-ups, anyway.

After warm-ups, Rasmus grabs one of his game sticks, pride tape wrapped at the base of his grip, and paces around the locker room chatting with the guys. Casey twists his stick, taped in its usual plain white, in his hands and leans back into his stall. He wishes he could disappear.

**fall 2019**

The first time they have sex, everything goes wrong. 

Casey, overeager as always, bites Rasmus’ tongue. They’re on the couch watching _Juno_, and Rasmus’ limbs are _everywhere_. The angle is awkward and the couch is uncomfortable, though Casey would never tell Rasmus. It’s the only thing he bought for the apartment, and when he returned from his IKEA trip in his first week in Buffalo with the couch and a smile so wide it could’ve fallen right off his face, Casey fell so fast and so hard that he knew he’d love the couch even if it was made of stone.

Casey doesn’t complain about the couch scratching him as he kisses Rasmus. He doesn’t whine about the remote digging into his shoulder blade when Rasmus pushes him backward and clambers on top of him. Rasmus’ hair falls into his face, divided into its perfect part as always. His face is so red and his body is so warm.

Rasmus tries to suck Casey’s dick and falls off the couch. It’s too narrow and Casey’s too big, still growing into his body. He’s still growing into his sexuality, too, whatever it might be. Casey’s never had sex with a man before. He had sex with girls in college, because they wanted to and his friends wanted him to and he wanted himself to want to.

Sheepishly, Rasmus says, “I’m a virgin,” and Casey, overconfident, says, “I’ll show you.” It must be similar to how it is with a girl, he figures.

It’s not.

Neither of them come and they’re both sweating through their shirts by the time they give up. The TV is muted but Juno is pregnant and waddling around on screen. Casey says, “Sorry.”

Rasmus laughs and kisses him. The taste is vaguely citrusy, like Casey ate an orange an hour ago but is still picking the flesh from between his teeth. He wonders why he hadn’t noticed it before, but it was probably because his dick was hard and Rasmus was in his lap. There’s a floral to it too, heady and growing over time, so that when Rasmus pulls away and says, “We can try again later,” all Casey can do is touch the spots on his chest where Rasmus had kissed him and wonder if flowers will sprout from his skin.

No flowers sprout, but something between them does. They figure it out, eventually, just like they’re figuring out their place here in their tiny icy corner of America. They watch porn together, which is kind of embarrassing, but it turns into handjobs and eventually handjobs turn into blowjobs and thigh-fucking. 

One day when they’re properly prepared with enough lube and a bed and _plenty_ of research, Casey fingers Rasmus until his jaw goes slack and his legs tremble on Casey’s bedsheets. When Casey gets inside, it’s tight and embarrassingly brief and Casey can’t walk afterward, even though he was the one who topped. Rasmus passes him a tin of his bergamot snus and they lie on Casey’s bed staring at the ceiling.

“I, uh.” Rasmus says. “I’d like to do that again with you sometime.”

“Yeah,” Casey replies. “Me too.”

**fall 2018**

On off days during their rookie year, they watch movies on the couch and order take-out. Rasmus introduces Casey to snus and Casey introduces Rasmus to weed. Older guys still drink like fish, out getting fucked up until 3 A.M., but alcohol’s gone out of favor with the youth. Casey’s done skates hungover before and he’s kind of over it; he would rather smoke a joint and watch _13 Going on 30_ again with Rasmus, giggling the whole time.

Snus are new, and different. He’s juuled a little, a couple times at parties, but Rasmus just shakes his head and says, “_This_ is what we do in Europe,” and passes Casey a tiny pouch of tobacco.

It tastes like citrus.

Rasmus laughs at the way Casey pinches his lips in surprise at the flavor and nicotine. His head tips back and he holds his hand to his chest, long fingers that are pink at the end curling around the neck of his shirt. He looks comfortable in his loose tee, like he’s starting to find a home in their weird little Buffalo apartment. Casey gets a little hooked.

He keeps coming back to it. To the snus, to the bright citrus under his lip, to Rasmus’ laugh and the smoothness of his skating. There’s something about watching Rasmus on the ice, the poise with which he glides on the ice with more control than ten year veterans, that makes Casey develop a hopeless crush that he can’t quite tamp down.

They circle each other, curled up together on Rasmus’ IKEA couch through the season but never touching more than it takes to pass the snus between them. They’re young and all they care about is how good it feels, how nice the buzz is under their skin.

The addiction teaches Casey what it means to yearn for more. Keeping Rasmus always at arms length, never able to kiss the smile right off his face, teaches Casey how much the yearning can hurt.

**summer 2020**

Casey spends his afternoons with a bunch of Minnesota guys, hanging by the lake and drinking and complaining about their training. Most of the time it’s at Brock’s place, because he’s got the best deck and the best dogs and the best beer. He invited the Pettersson kid along again, the second summer in a row, and Casey’s too busy trying to ignore how much he reminds him of Rasmus, blonde hair and Swedish accent, to notice how enamored Brock is with him.

They’re sitting out on the deck, and Brock practically throws himself into Elias’ lap, curling up like a dog and kissing Elias’ face. Casey blinks. That… wasn’t happening last summer. He feels sick to his stomach. Elias grumbles, poking Brock in the side and saying, “You’re fat,” but he snakes his arms around Brock's waist anyway and allows him to brush his fingers through his bleach blonde hair. Brock murmurs into Elias’ ear, words so sweet that Casey can almost taste caramel under his tongue, taffy and sticky and rotting his teeth from _I love you_s and _you're the best thing to ever happen to me_s.

Elias is red, but maybe that’s just from the sun.

Casey sneaks off to slip some snus under his lip and he washes the sugar away, the mint flavor overpowering everything else as the nicotine drips down Casey's throat and makes everything stop fizzing so much.

He goes back out to the deck and drinks another beer. Elias’ hand is poking under Brock’s shirt, touching his lower abdomen. He moves his fingers in small ovals on Brock’s skin. It’s casually intimate and Casey can only think of Rasmus. Everything makes him think of Rasmus; his laugh, his shy smile, his ability to embarrass anyone when it comes to skating.

Casey misses him enough to do something stupid. Brock sends them all home eventually and Casey stumbles around the lake back to his own place, feeling like he’s floating from the alcohol and nicotine. He sits on the floor of his bedroom and texts Rasmus.

_i miss you_

_when are you back in buffalo?_

**fall 2019**

They go grocery shopping on an early Sunday morning. The leaves are turning and they’re in their pajamas. They laugh the whole walk over. Rasmus carries an armful of boxes of mac n’ cheese over to their cart as Casey palms his way through the fruits, aromatic oranges that are pebbly under his fingertips. 

They amble through the abandoned dairy section, spinning the circles and flirting. Under his hoodie, a patchwork of bite marks on Casey’s chest tell the story of their Saturday night. It’s sore in the best way. Rasmus leans over his shoulder and watches as Casey opens the cartons of eggs and searches for cracked ones.

Rasmus slips his hand into Casey’s. Casey goes limp, anxiety and confusion flooding his senses.

“Hey, ah,” he says, turning away from the eggs. “People could see.” 

Rasmus’ face falls for a second, but then he squeezes Casey’s hand and pulls him closer, their hands pressed between their stomachs. “So what?” he asks.

Casey wiggles his hand free. He looks over his shoulder; there’s no one around except for Casey and his clammy hands and Rasmus and his sad doe eyes. Casey kisses Rasmus’ palm.

“I’m not… not ready.” 

It’s not the first time he hasn’t been ready. Rasmus frowns but says nothing, wandering down the aisle to look at the price of milk. Casey thinks of nights out at restaurants and bars, sliding his hand away from Rasmus’, leaning away from the press of his arm as they walk around the mall.

He’ll get there, eventually. Besides, he doesn’t think Rasmus minds. He blows Casey when they get back from the grocery store and they spend the rest of their off day gaming. Casey wants to protect their moments alone, keep it from prying eyes and prying questions and Instagram comments filled with slurs. It’s still small, still delicate.

**summer 2020**

“Honey, I bought some oranges, they’re on the counter.” Casey’s mom is in a rush but the smell of oranges sits leisurely in the air. It permeates the house, bright citrus reaching into every corner like it’s hunting Casey down.

“Fuck,” Casey says without thinking. His voice is loud and angry, and Casey isn’t even sure where in his chest it came from.

The fruit is a knee jerk reaction. The fruit is Rasmus, laughing on the couch and skating like nobody else can. Casey’s shaking like he’s in withdrawal.

Casey ends up eating them all, five oranges all in a row, just to get rid of the smell in the air. Then he rushes to the bathroom and brushes his teeth until his gums bleed, swallowing the minty foam. The mint is clean and overpowers all the citrus. He washes the orange stain from his cheeks, watching the water swirl into the drain. His fingers are sticky so he scrubs them, too, rubbing his hands raw under the tap.

The next day his mother comes home with more oranges, chattering about how surprised she was that the others were already gone. Casey takes one sniff and vomits into the toilet, crawling upstairs afterward to curl up in bed until dinner. When he turns on the too-bright screen of his phone, there are two texts waiting for him.

_i miss you too_

_im back a month from tomorrow. see u soon_

**fall 2020**

Casey gets back to Buffalo first. It’s nice in the city, gray as usual but not cold. There are two lonely days of takeout until Rasmus gets in.

When he does, Casey hears him come in. He leaves his bags in the entry and walks up to the kitchen where Casey’s sitting on the floor.

“You alright? You alive?” he asks. Casey notices that his accent’s a little stronger than he remembers. It was like that last fall too, vowels a shade more European than the spring prior.

“Not dead yet,” Casey says.

“Cool. You’re not allowed to die yet. I have a few things I need to ask you.” Rasmus holds out his hand and helps Casey stand up.

“Yeah? Can you walk and talk? We seriously have nothing in the fridge.” Casey smiles weakly.

“I can do that.”

They know the path to the grocery store by heart. It’s an easy walk and the morning is pleasant. The mint snus tin rattles in Casey’s pocket but he hasn’t opened its perfectly round promise of a lid since he puked up his guts a month ago. He still carries it around just in case. It still fits so nicely in his palm.

Rasmus’ hands are shoved deep into his jacket pockets. “So I got your text,” he begins, as if Casey didn’t already know, as if he hadn’t replied to it.

There’s a pause. Rasmus bites his lip. He tries again. “I’m not sure how to say this. But, before I say anything else. Are… you gay?”

Hockey players aren’t gay, Casey thinks. Casey _knows_. He’s been told a million times, not always in so many words, but the sentiment is the same. But other hockey players aren’t in love with their roommates. Other hockey players don’t miss their roommates so much that a familiar smell or lilt on a vowel sends them tumbling into self-destruction.

“I mean. Yeah. Probably.” Casey looks over his shoulder. The street is empty. He feels the anxiety rise in his chest anyway, the twisting pressure in his gut and lungs that makes each step difficult. He moves his legs mechanically, as if he’s learning how to walk all over again. He’s never admitted to that before, not to anyone.

“Okay. Me too,” Rasmus says. 

Casey missteps, but when he regains his footing it’s easier to walk than before. Rasmus’ words settle the rising pressure. They’re the only two out on the road, and they carry matching secrets. It makes it a little less heavy that way.

Rasmus picks out a few apples and Casey picks a few vegetables at random, throwing them into a bag and the bag into their cart. They make their way to the dairy aisle next, Casey gliding on the cart and Rasmus laughing behind him.

Rasmus peeks at the eggs. “These okay?” he asks, lifting a carton up to Casey with the top open. Casey runs his finger over them, their lopsided oval bodies. They’re speckled and unevenly brown but none are cracked.

“Perfect,” he says.

Rasmus shuts the carton with a smile, close enough to Casey that he can see every dimple in his skin, every little divot caught in the lights of the refrigerators. Casey wants to kiss each one, pull Rasmus down into the eggs and crush them all. Nothing really matters to Casey except months of missing Rasmus’ touch, the longing for going back in time and doing everything again, differently this time so he never had to miss it in the first place.

Instead, Casey grabs Rasmus’ hand in his own and ambles down the length of the dairy aisle with him, their cart rolling on its uneven wheels and their arms pressed together, swinging in time.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! ive wanted to write a casey/rasmus fic all year so i hope i did them justice :D
> 
> <3


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